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<title>The Pull of The Tide (The Kiss of You in My Ears) by Beam (ForestDivinity)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27137887">The Pull of The Tide (The Kiss of You in My Ears)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForestDivinity/pseuds/Beam'>Beam (ForestDivinity)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Welcome to The Haunt House [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Banshee!Vanya, Banshees, Day At The Beach, Developing Relationship, F/F, First Kiss, Introspection, Pseudo-Incest, Siren!Allison, Sirens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:41:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,187</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27137887</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForestDivinity/pseuds/Beam</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> Before-</i>
</p><p>  <i>Before her siblings, before America and experiments and the loss of herself and death - so much death-</i></p><p> <br/><i>Before Vanya had never visited the ocean, there had never been a chance. For a long time, she had been stuck, wandering across empty moors and fields that she never really knew, despite having spent her whole life on them. Her memory of that life - of her own life - is foggy at best and sometimes wholly non-existent, but Vanya is pretty sure she'd never seen the ocean. </i><br/>-<br/>Just a little supernatural AU right in time for Halloween, this time Vanya discovers a few things about herself, Allison is a little bit oblivious to the flirting, and seashells play a bigger role than you'd imagine. All in all, it's time for a beach episode!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Allison Hargreeves/Vanya Hargreeves, Poly-Greeves implied, The Hargreeves Family</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Welcome to The Haunt House [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978843</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Pull of The Tide (The Kiss of You in My Ears)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Before-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Before her siblings, before America and experiments and the loss of herself and death - so much death-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Before Vanya had never visited the ocean, there had never been a chance. For a long time, she had been stuck, wandering across empty moors and fields that she never really knew, despite having spent her whole life on them. Her memory of that life - of her own life - is foggy at best and sometimes wholly non-existent, but Vanya is pretty sure she'd never seen the ocean.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It is... beautiful. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sure, it's later October, and it's freezing and the air whips at her face and makes her cry, but it's still beautiful. Vanya has never really felt the cold anyway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That makes her sound like a Disney movie, and she's watched more of them than she cares to admit. Klaus adores the early ones, reminisces over Snow White and Cinderella, but more often than not it's Allison who she sits down with to watch little animated princesses.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Speaking of-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Vanya! Hey, you good?" Allison is like a ray of sunshine against the grey backdrop of the ocean and the cloudy sky. Vanya has always liked the rain, but she likes the way her sister looks in her yellow boots and matching, shiny coat better.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I'm good. Just... admiring the view." Coming from anyone else the double entendre would probably be taken as she meant it - as flirting that is. Allison just smiles at her and follows her gaze out to the ocean.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"It's stunning, isn't it?" Standing among the mist, Vanya can practically see her wings, hear the trill of Allison's song - the crashing of bodies against rocks. It makes her own throat ache.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Vanya hasn't sung in a long time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She's the youngest of their little family. Of course, she's not young, but she knows that they still coddle her a little. Still treat her like she's about to blow up in equal measure which is fair, all things considered (she thinks of death, of music, of the end of all things and blinks slowly to calm herself) but still-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Frustrating.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>"It is. Everything here is beautiful."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I don't know Vanya, would you consider Diego's bare ass beautiful?" </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Vanya snorts out a laugh at that and looks over to the ocean where Diego is possibly trying to drown Klaus. Or teach him how to swim? It's honestly hard to tell. She wonders if he's realised that his boxers have gone missing, judging by Klaus's caterwauling it's probably a no. If Diego had realised all they'd be able to hear was the rain and the ocean as he dragged Klaus under the water.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Idiots. Her brothers are idiots, and she loves them so much.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Depends on when I see it." She says after a moment, and Allison laughs back - with her, not at her, and the difference makes her heart swell. It feels like it might burst when Allison wraps an arm around her shoulder.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"You're right, you're right. How long until he notices?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I give Klaus ten minutes at most before he gets drowned." Vanya looks away from her brothers and back at Allison. Slowly, she leans into her side, smiling when the raincoat creaks as she shifts and rests against it. Around her shoulder, Allison curls her hand and squeezes, Vanya can just imagine the sharp point of her talons, and she fights the urge to shiver at the thought.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dangerous - but then, they all are.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Shall we walk?" She asks after a moment, and Allison lights up in delight. "Maybe we can find some more shells for your collection... or that sea glass you like?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Oh! You noticed? Klaus keeps stealing them from me, so now I have to hide them." Allison pouts, and Vanya imagines kissing her, wonders how soft her lips would be, how sweet. They're covered in a thin layer of shiny, sticky gloss.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Allison is enticing.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Klaus is a dirty little thief," Vanya says this seriously, a little too seriously perhaps but it draws another fond laugh from Allison. Part of her wonders if every sound that leaves her mouth is meant to be so magnetic because Vanya wants to hear more of those noises. Wants to hear more of Allison, delighted and showing it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I think they invented the word kleptomaniac just to describe him," Allison rolls her eyes, but there's no heat behind the statement. All of them are plenty used to Klaus's sticky, nimble fingers. It's fine, at least he isn't stealing and pawning and buying drugs any longer.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Vanya wasn't around for his worst years, and she's thankful for it. The decades that she caught were enough to leave an aching worry in her heart.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Carefully she shrugs Allison's arm off her shoulder in favour of grabbing her hand. It's more assertive than she's ever been before, but the sky is grey, and Allison is a ray of light and Vanya is slowly learning how to take risks. Truthfully, she can't remember the last time she was a risk-taker; had she ever been?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It doesn't matter. She puts those thoughts, the past, aside for a moment. There are more important things to focus on right now.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Like Allison's hand, warm and steady in her own.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"It wouldn't surprise me," Vanya says, and then, "well, we better replenish your collection then."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Allison's collection would probably be more accurately called a nest - only Vanya has never seen such a neat, pretty, organised nest. Her walls are painted blue and covered in shelves, which are in turn covered in everything and anything Allison holds dear. There are plenty of gifts, trinkets from past suitors and lives she'd lived, but most prominent are the little reminders of the sea.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They don't come out often. Vanya had been fresh to the family the last time they'd, everything about her tiny and scared. Freedom had been terrifying to her, so she'd stayed at home with Five, working her way through daily panic attacks as she tried not to bring the house down. It's better now, the itch in her throat is something she's learnt to embrace, and when she can't embrace it, she adapts.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Allison had taught her a lot about that. Adapting and vocals and the feeling of living with a secret nestled between your mouth and your lungs.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Gently, she tugs her sister down the beach, towards the rock pools and driftwood. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Klaus had organised this trip, somehow he'd even managed to persuade Five into coming. Vanya can just about make him out, sat under an umbrella, a frown on his face. Despite the look, Vanya thinks he might be enjoying himself. Vanya isn't sure what made Klaus decide they needed a beach trip in late October, but she would hazard a guess it's to do with Diego and with Allison.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Vanya look, it's a </span>
  <em>
    <span>rose murex</span>
  </em>
  <span>!" Allison tugs her forwards, and Vanya is tugged out of her thoughts at the movement. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Is it?" It looks like a shell to her—a pretty one, curly and worn smooth and pink inside, but just a shell.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She smiles anyway because Allison is smiling.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"You can tell it washed up from the ocean because the spines have been worn down." Vanya is pulled closer as Allison runs her fingers along the edge of it. "Feel it-" </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So she does. It's cool under her fingers but not cold. Vanya imagines living a life buffeted by waves, always underwater. Would it be dark, cold? Would she even know what those words meant if she'd grown up on the seafloor?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What is the dark to someone who's never seen the light?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She suppresses her urge to shiver. Allison presses closer to her, her curls have gone flatter, damp from the constant drizzle of rain, sticking to her forehead in places and sticking up wildly in others.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"It's an interesting texture."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I love shells like this, Vanya. Do you know why?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"No?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"When you hold them to your ear, you can hear the ocean in them. They spend their whole lives in the sea, and they never forget."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There's a gut punch in there. Vanya inhales and sees herself as a shell, tender pink inside, all her edges worn down from the sea, salt and sound buried somewhere deep inside of her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Really?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Mhm! Here, try-" Allison leans closer to her and holds the shell up to her ear, it presses against her skin like a kiss, and she closes her eyes at the unexpected intimacy. Up against her side, she can feel Allison, wet and somehow warm through the layers of their clothes and the cold sea air, beneath her shoes, the sand shifts unsteady.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Vanya relates.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then she listens. Eyes shut, her sense of hearing is heightened - it's always heightened, compared to the way humans hear, but she lets the sound roll through her. The steady push-and-pull of the waves echoes around her, the ocean and itself condensed in miniature. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Do you hear it?" Allison's voice drops to a whisper, it twists and lilts in time with the waves.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I do."  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Isn't it fantastic?" </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Fantastic is one word for it, Vanya thinks. Haunting too, but Vanya is learning to lean into the ghastly - she's an omen of death after all. If she can't deal with a chill down her spine, then what sort of banshee even is she?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Carefully, she opens her eyes. The world rushes back in, all grey and blue and shiny yellow pressed up against her side.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"It is." She says, </span>
  <em>
    <span>it's you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she means. "You're fantastic." </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her heart beats, swelling back and forth like the tide. She remembers meeting Allison that first time, the fear and the heartache and the way they'd been pit against each other. There are memories there that she'd rather not touch, but they're here now.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They're together.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Vanya swallows and gently wraps her hand around the shell, laying it over Allison's own darker skin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Vanya-" Allison's voice sounds strange. Maybe it is the sea or the storm that's picking up around them. It could just be the fact that they are wholly and entirely together. She thinks it could be love. In her long life, Vanya has rarely </span>
  <em>
    <span>desired</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She has had wants, needs, things she'd looked at and taken for her own.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Or, Vanya has </span>
  <em>
    <span>desired </span>
  </em>
  <span>her whole life. Within her, there has always been a craving for the warmth of another, something in her screaming to be seen for the first time. It would be more accurate to say that no one has ever desired her back.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And yet here she is.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She has a family now, and all of them want her. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Allison, eyes brown and deep and staring into Vanya's own, wants her. She takes a breath and pushes up onto her tiptoes. The air is charged between them, Vanya wonders if there will be lightning tonight (wonders if she can make lightning tonight, thunder and sound and bright flashes like the ones through her body).</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Vanya," Allison repeats, steadier this time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Allison," She says in turn, and then there is the meeting of their lips, the press of a body against her own, Allison's hand and mouth and the taste of salt against her tongue.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Inside her throat, there is an itch, one new and familiar all at the same time, it spreads through her body. First down to her toes and then up to the crown of her head, the tips of her ears. It cries out for </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Vanya has never been satisfied in her life, she can't remember a time when she didn't wallow in the discontent, the awful malaise that had coated her entire life.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She's greedy, she allows herself to be.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Allison's free hand drops to her hip, and it lights a fire in the small of her back, one that flickers up through her stomach and warms the ache of her heart. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Love is an awful (wonderful) thing, Vanya thinks. She shifts closer, as unstable as a glass house built on a beach. The tides are going to sweep her away, the ocean is a solid body insistently pressed against her own. Her lips part and there is tongue and Allison, and she thinks her head might explode from the sheer intensity of it all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Between them, the </span>
  <em>
    <span>rose murex</span>
  </em>
  <span> falls helplessly to the ground. The dull thud of it is a shock to Vanya's system.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Oh, oh no I dropped it-" She gasps as they pull away and the fear she'd allowed herself to forget for a few blissful moments sinks back in. All that guilt bubbles back up but-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"It's okay, you didn't break it." Allison soothes her and oh.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I didn't break anything." Vanya murmurs, and as fast as it had sunk it, the fear slips away again, pulled out by the tide.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"You didn't break anything," Allison repeats, with one hand she picks up the shell and the other Vanya's hand. Above them, there is the first crack of thunder, and then the rain stops being a drizzle and becomes an outpour and Vanya finds herself laughing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It feels good.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please comment and Kudos if you like!! You can follow me on <a href="https://ashayathyla2.tumblr.com/">@ashayathyla2</a> for more content!</p><p>I blame the <a href="https://discord.gg/dGg2Tb">Elliot's House discord</a> for this!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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